Archive for May, 2017

We’ve just learned that actor Jared Martin, who genre TV fans would remember from the short-lived Fantastic Journey series as well as the TV series adaptation of War Of The Worlds, along with a small role in the original Westworld, passed away this past Wednesday at the age of 75 at home after suffering from pancreatic cancer.

He was probably more well known as rodeo cowboy Dusty Farlow who seduced Sue Ellen Ewing only to die in a plane crash on Dallas, although he was resurrected due to fan popularity. He was also a roommate to Brian de Palma at Columbia University, who gave Martin two of his first acting jobs, in 1968’s Murder a la Mod and 1969’s The Wedding Party.

As the lead character of Dr. Harrison Blackwood in War Of The Worlds, he was one of the few characters to survive the retooling of the series in the second season, which took the show from a contemporary setting to a more post-apocalyptic world and a “second wave” of aliens take over.

A young Peter Parker/Spider-Man (Tom Holland), who made his sensational debut in Captain America: Civil War, begins to navigate his newfound identity as the web-slinging super hero in Spider-Man: Homecoming. Thrilled by his experience with the Avengers, Peter returns home, where he lives with his Aunt May (Marisa Tomei), under the watchful eye of his new mentor Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.). Peter tries to fall back into his normal daily routine – distracted by thoughts of proving himself to be more than just your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man – but when the Vulture (Michael Keaton) emerges as a new villain, everything that Peter holds most important will be threatened.

The final trailer starts with a close look at the alien people and creatures we will see, along with a sequence that looks a bit like a third person video game…Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets debuts July 21, 2017.

Syfy’s Channel Zero extended anthology series has a third installment (and a fourth), and a cast, although it doesn’t have a title yet.

Brandon Scott (Blair Witch, Guerrilla) and Holland Roden (Teen Wolf, Bring It On: Fight to the Finish) have signed on as leads for the third installment of the show. I haven’t seen plot details, but Scott will play a cop with a “world-weary” exterior, but a fierce commitment to justice, and a deep love for his troubled community. Roden is Zoe Woods, a sharp, tough young woman whose struggles with mental illness have worn her down over the years. She hates that her younger sister Alice has to take care of her and she’d give anything to go back to the way things used to be.

The second series, No-End House, airs in October and follows Brian Russell’s story of Margot (Amy Forsyth), a young woman who, along with her friends, visits the No-End House – a bizarre house of horrors consisting of a series of increasingly disturbing rooms.

Netflix has ordered 10 episodes of The Dark Crystal: Age of Resistance from the Jim Henson Company. The series is a prequel to the 1982 film The Dark Crystal, where Jim Henson brought his puppet-making prowess to bring to life an entire fantasy world full of Gelflings, Skeksis, Mystics and more.

Louis Leterrier (Now You See Me, The Incredible Hulk), Lisa Henson (CEO of the Jim Henson Company) and Halle Stanford will executive produce, with Rita Peruggi (long time Henson collaborator) as producer and Blanca Lista as co-executive producer. Jeffrey Addiss and Will Matthews (Life in a Year) and Javier Grillo-Marxuach (The 100) will head up writing, with Addiss and Matthews also co-executive producing.

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve watched The Dark Crystal. Back in the early days of having cable, it filled a void in TV of fantasy content for me. And to see the familiar puppet styles but so much more advanced was fascinating. I can’t wait to see how they take this some 35+ years later.

CBS dropped some info on the upcoming CBS All Access series Star Trek: Discovery – not a lot, mind you, but some – and more importantly, the trailer for the show.

Today at the network’s upfront presentations, they announced that they ordered an additional two episodes, bringing up the first season to 15 episodes. In addition, there will be a companion “Talk” series called Talking Trek – a strategy that is becoming increasingly popular with off-broadcast genre shows.

And then there is this…

I still have fears that limiting this series to the CBS All Access pay-streaming service will limit the audience too much to support such an expensive show, but I’m not sure what the All Access subscriber numbers look like currently.

We thought that is was in the “more likely than not camp, and we were right – ABC has renewed Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. for another season. ABC had previously told producer Jed Whedon to write a “season finale”, not a series finale, so odds were pretty good.

The current season of S.H.I.E.L.D. is reaching its conclusion of the “Agents of Hydra” storyline, where some of the team were entrapped in a virtual reality called the Framework where Hydra was in control and the agents all lead very different lives. The season has been averaging about 4.3 million viewers.

In a bit of a surprise announcement, SpikeTV announced today that they will be taking on the second season of The Shannara Chronicles which will air this Fall.

The first season of the original scripted drama, based on the best-selling fantasy book series by Terry Brooks, debuted on MTV in 2016.

Filmed on location in New Zealand, the new season will consist of 10 one-hour episodes. Details of the premiere date and time for season two will be announced in the coming weeks.

Spike will introduce its viewers to the critically-acclaimed series this summer as it will encore season one beginning on Thursday, June 29 at 11:00pm ET/PT, directly following the Spike original series, The Mist.

Season two takes place one year after the events of last season. The Four Lands are in chaos. The re-emergence of magic has the populace terrified, and an organization called The Crimson is hunting down magic users, using fear and intimidation to sow discord among the races. Wil, scarred by the loss of Amberle and his separation from Eretria, has turned his back on his magical destiny to become a healer. But when a mysterious woman named Mareth saves Wil from a Crimson attack, he is forced to rejoin the fight.

The Shannara Chronicles is created by Al Gough and Miles Millar based on the Shannara series of books written by Terry Brooks. The series is executive produced by Gough & Millar, Brooks, Jon Favreau, Jonathan Liebesman, and Dan Farah. The series is produced and distributed worldwide by Sonar Entertainment in association with Millar/Gough Ink and Farah Films.

In less surprising news, Starz has renewed American Gods for a second season after just two episodes. The show, based on the novel of the same name by author Neil Gaiman, follows Shadow Moon (Ricky Whittle, The 100) after he is released from prison and recruited by the mysterious Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane, Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides) into what appears to be a supernatural war between the gods of the Old World, brought to America by the immigrants, and the “new” gods, led by Technical Boy (Bruce Langley, Deadly Waters) and Media (Gillian Anderson, The X-Files – who appears in the form of Lucille Ball/Lucy Ricardo). The show is produced by FremantleMedia North America, with Bryan Fuller and Michael Green serving as executive producers/showrunners and also writing for the show.

NBC has decided not to renew freshman history-bending show Timeless, despite some hope that it might renew the show when it ordered additional episodes in the Fall.

Co-creator Eric Kripke confirmed the news on Twitter, but gave a little hope that it might get picked up elsewhere: “Its true. NBC canceled #Timeless. We’re surprised & upset. Get you a longer response later. Odds are long, but trying to find another home.” Fellow co-creator Shawn Ryan also said that studio Sony is shopping the show around. Odds are indeed very long for that to happen. It’s not unheard of but a rare occurrence, as another network isn’t likely to take on a show that another network couldn’t get to work, at least without major changes, as with Supergirl‘s move to the CW Network.

Timeless was launched in what was considered a prime slot on Mondays following The Voice, but it didn’t seem to garner the same level of audience predecessors did in that position. Viewership was OK on Live+7 but weak on just live viewers, and even early on Kripke mentioned that it was a “bubble show” and likely would have to fight each year for renewal.